Australia said it planned to hold its largest-ever military exercise with Indonesia in November, the first under a new defense pact the two neighbors signed on Thursday, signaling deepening ties in a region fraught with geopolitical tensions.
The two nations’ defense ministers signed the treaty-level agreement in Central Java province as Indonesia was hosting its annual Super Garuda Shield joint military exercise with the United States in neighboring East Java province.
The agreement is important for Canberra because of growing Chinese military activity in contested South China Sea waters. While Indonesia professes non-alignment and neutrality in the Beijing vs the West tussle, it is an important nation to court because it is Southeast Asia’s largest.
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles said the agreement, which he signed with his Indonesian counterpart, Prabowo Subianto, “is an important piece of international architecture” underpinned with substance.
“Later this year, in November, exercise Chris Woomera will be the biggest bilateral exercise between our two countries, almost 2,000 personnel from Australia and Indonesia’s defense forces working together, exercising together at Surabaya,” he said at a news conference after the agreement was signed.
“It’s across the fields of air, land and sea. It’s the most complex exercise that we will have seen,” Marles said, adding it would also be the biggest one that Australia would jointly stage outside its territory in 2024.
‘Promote sustainable security’
In Indonesian, the exercise is called Woomera Keris 2024.
The keris (or kris), a Javanese-style dagger known for its distinctive wavy blade, is a weapon used in an Indonesian martial art. And the woomera is an Australian wood spear-throwing device.
Marles said the exercise was developed keeping this agreement in mind.
“It is an example of how at this moment in our history, we see each other relying on the security of each other and working much more closely together to develop that,” the Australian minister said.
“[W]e will see a much greater interoperability between our defense forces, and an ability to operate from each other’s countries, and on that basis, we can work much more closely together on our shared interests, most significantly of which is maintaining the global rules based order.”
Prabowo, who will be sworn in as the next Indonesian president in October, said the agreement with Australia would also address regional issues.
“This agreement is intended to strengthen our direct relationship as neighbors, enhance cooperation in addressing security threats, and promote sustainable security and stability in the Asia-Pacific region,” Prabowo said at the press conference alongside Marles.
‘Effort to win Indonesia’s favor’
The agreement is a result of both countries responding to security dynamics in the region, particularly concerning issues related to the South China Sea and the Indo-Pacific, said Khairul Fahmi, a defense analyst at the Institute for Security and Strategic Studies.
“This cooperation is especially important for maintaining balance in the region in light of the influence of major powers such as China and the United States,” he told Benar News.
“Indonesia is also seen as a significant player in geopolitical terms, making it crucial for maintaining regional stability. Indonesia holds strategic value.”
The benefits for Jakarta, he said, would be Australia's help with patrols to address transnational security threats such as terrorism, piracy, natural disasters, illegal fishing, and human trafficking.
As another analyst sees it, Australia struck the pact with Indonesia because Canberra may believe that Indonesia is not fully non-aligned as it claims.
“The collaboration represents Australia’s effort to win Indonesia’s favor, as Indonesia has appeared to lean towards China,” said Yohanes Sulaiman, a security expert from Jenderal Ahmad Yani University in Bandung, West Java.
“This military exercise is a tangible outcome of this cooperation, even though joint military exercises are a common practice.”
Super Garuda Shield
One such exercise is under way in Sidoarjo, East Java, with Australia’s ally, the United States.
Forces from Indonesia and the U.S. are taking part in annual Super Garuda Shield military exercises on Java island along with contingents from eight other counties, as Washington looks to limit Beijing’s influence in the region and Indonesia seeks to bolster its alliances.
A total of 5,500 troops from the 10 countries are participating, while 12 other nations, mostly in the Asia-Pacific region, have sent observers to the war games, according to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
In November 2023, the U.S. and Indonesia signed a new defense cooperation agreement as Washington looked to counter Beijing’s regional influence. The Pentagon said Super Garuda Shield would help in “solidifying the U.S.-Indonesia major defense partnership and supporting a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
The Indonesian military said the exercise, which runs from Aug. 26 to Sept. 6, serves as a platform for building trust and confidence among participating militaries.
“Super Garuda Shield in 2024 is a means to create and build mutual trust in the military sector, strengthen bilateral military-to-military relations, and multilateral relations,” said Air Marshal Widyargo Ikoputra, deputy commander of the Indonesian National Armed Forces Education and Training Command.
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A U.S. contingent of 2,500 service members is joining about 3,000 troops from Indonesia, Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
Observers from Malaysia and the Philippines, both of which have territorial disputes with China over areas of the South China Sea, will be monitoring the exercise, as will representatives from Thailand.
Super Garuda Shield aims to enhance the ability to plan and execute joint operations, improve interoperability between Indonesian and U.S. forces, and foster cooperation across all domains, including land, sea, air and cyberspace, Indonesia said.
The 2024 drills will include training to prepare the militaries for cyber threats. Indonesia has experienced severe cyber attacks in the past few years, which disrupted several government services.
“Indonesia benefits from this joint exercise as it provides an opportunity to increase defense capacity,” defense analyst Fahmi, from the Institute for Security and Strategic Studies said.
At the same time, Indonesia is playing a crucial role in maintaining neutrality and preventing escalation in the region, he added.
Policy of non-alignment
One way Indonesia is doing that is by seeking to foster ties with different partners, said Abdul Rahman Yaacob, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
For instance, while Jakarta and Canberra signed the Defense Cooperation Agreement on Thursday, earlier in the week Indonesian Army Chief of Staff Gen. Maruli Simanjuntak said in an interview with Japan’s Nikkei that a joint exercise with China might also start next year.
“Indonesia’s strategic culture is to emphasize non-alignment in dealings with major powers, maintaining defense engagements with various partners, and avoiding military alliances,” Yaacob told Radio Free Asia, a BenarNews affiliate.
While in Canberra on 20 August, Defence Minister and President-elect Prabowo Subianto made it clear that Indonesia remains avowedly non-aligned. This stance and how Indonesia perceives the world needs to underpin our relationship.
To refresh our own sense of the country, my partner and I recently returned to Indonesia, having not been there for seven years. (We had both worked there previously.) Our hotel in Jakarta was well placed for early morning walks. How the footpaths have improved! On the first day, I noticed a huge sign, Indonesia Emas 45, or Golden Indonesia 2045: not an aspiration for the Paris Olympics, but a much larger vision. The current president, Joko Widodo (Jokowi), has set the deadline for achieving this as 2045, the centenary of Indonesian independence from Dutch colonial rule. The ambitious agenda includes accession to the OECD, becoming a high-income country and an influential, non-aligned regional power.
When I got back to Australia, people asked about our trip, which had taken us across Java, the most populated island in the world and home to 56 per cent of Indonesia’s 280 million people. They were shocked to hear that number and admitted they really didn’t know much about our closest neighbour, described in the CIA World Factbook as the world’s third-most-populous democracy and the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.
In Java, Muslim headdress is everywhere now. The majority of women and girls — even tiny children in the hotel’s swimming pool — wear the hijab. This trend has been growing for decades. Does this symbolise a retreat from Indonesia’s moderate and tolerant version of Islam? That is the first of many questions that occurred to me during our travels. I found answers in research undertaken by Australians, Indonesians and others, mostly freely available in English on the internet. There’s no excuse for ignorance.
All along our route we were struck by the tenacity of Indonesian expressions of national pride – in the red and white flag flying everywhere and in references to “nusantara”, first coined to denote territories within the orbit of the Majapahit empire. At its peak in the 14th century, these extended from modern-day Thailand to New Guinea. That imperial connotation has faded; the word is now synonymous with the archipelago that is Indonesia. It is also the name for the new capital being built in Kalimantan.
This nationalist sentiment can have distinct regional characteristics, which makes the electoral process interesting. At the national level, the majority of Muslims and the most prominent Islamic organisations are committed to retaining a secular national government. At the regional level — the whole country returns to the polls in November to vote at the provincial, district and city levels — politics is influenced by national alliances and manoeuvring but also reflect local concerns and religiosities. They have become a battleground for Jokowi’s dynastic ambitions.
Day-to-day life seems to be even more local. Some argue that’s how the megacity of Jakarta will survive – as a series of kampungs (or villages) infused with their own sense of community. In Semarang, we walked off a main road and were soon in a food market. I asked a man unloading garlic if he’d grown it himself. No, it all came from China. Not so local after all!
China has been Indonesia’s largest trading partner for more than a decade and is among Indonesia’s top three sources of foreign investment. In 2023, China announced an investment pledge of US$21.7 billion, covering e-commerce, industry, agriculture, fisheries, science and technology. Australia’s investment stock in Indonesia is about $4.3 billion.
Also omnipresent is the mobile phone. It seems everyone has one; indeed, the statistics reveal a total of 353.3 million active mobile connections in early 2024. That’s equivalent to 126.8 percent of the total population. We had no difficulty accessing wi-fi in Java and Bali. Connectivity gets worse in more remote areas, yet internet penetration has reached 66.5 percent. No wonder people see the potential of the digital economy to help Indonesia leapfrog towards its desired high-income status.
For the time being, however, Indonesia remains a middle-income country. Fifty-two million Indonesians are now classified in the middle class. They are economically secure and have money for discretionary spending. Still, in Australian terms, monthly incomes are modest: a middle-class job pays around $500 a month. Many more Indonesians remain vulnerable to economic shocks, with up to 75 percent of jobs being in the informal, unregulated sector, mainly in agriculture, hospitality and trade. Most informal workers are poorly educated and ill-equipped to improve their lot. Nor do they readily have access to social services.
In Jakarta, prosperity manifests itself in big and small ways. The new metro system has transformed life for those who can afford to use it (a ticket costs 30 cents per station) and to live in proximity of one of its 13 stations. These middle-class Indonesians now walk, unheard of in the past, to public transport hubs. The productivity gains must be enormous, both in terms of the economy and cultural capital. And everyone visits the malls, though only the megarich can afford to buy luxury items for the eye-watering amounts imposed by the monopolistic arrangements that rule in these complexes.
To address income inequality, during the February 2024 presidential campaign all the candidates promised to increase taxes. The winner, Prabowo, vowed to raise the most, $100 billion. The wealthiest Indonesians can certainly afford to pay up. Prominent on the rich list are Indonesian Chinese, which still prompts criticism of their penchant for wealth accumulation, although anti-Chinese Indonesian feeling was more pronounced when I lived in Jakarta in the 1980s. Now the role of Chinese in the development of the nation is emerging as an important strand of Indonesian history, even in discussions about who brought Islam to the shores of Java. Was it the 15th century Chinese admiral Cheng Ho Sam whose shrine we visited at the impressive Po Kong Temple in Semarang?
A visit to another tourist attraction, in the East Javanese city of Malang, brings us back to the poor of Indonesia. Kampung Warna-Warni (Village of Colours) has been transformed, not only by a paint job, but also by the tourist dollars it attracts and a new social dynamic within the village. The change began as a university project. Students partnered with a local paint company interested in social responsibility to transform the slum. Bringing colour to the houses brought a sense of pride and new income streams.
Cleaning up rubbish is no easy task. Get off the beaten track just a few hundred metres and you are confronted by the scale of the problem. Plastic is one of the worst challenges; it takes so long to decompose and flies off open rubbish piles on the slightest breeze. Huge billboards exhort Indonesians to look after the environment, but many seem not to notice the signs, let alone all the debris on their verges.
When we got to Bali no-one checked if we’d paid the tourist tax of $15 — we had — introduced to raise revenue to help preserve the culture and nature of Bali and improve tourism services. Some of the revenue should be spent in the northern part of the island, marred by litter on the sides of roads and even the temples. Cultural practices do remain entrenched, though it seems that what the tourist industry demands is what the Balinese deliver. Seventy percent of the island’s economy is tied up in the industry. If the influx dries up, as it did during the pandemic, everyone hurts.
Australia and China are the top two source countries for tourism to Bali, but it’s the Australian flavour that is more palpable: in the coffee culture, the restaurant style, the joint wine-making operations, the surf schools, the dog rescue shelters. This prompts my last question: with the prospect of greater investment flows mentioned in Australian Government announcements, can we not look to this type of people-to-people relationship to anchor our programs of skills developments, higher education, health, even EV collaboration? It’s not the kind of engagement proposed by those who see Indonesia through the lens of the threat from China — each country’s largest trading partner — but it might prompt more Australians to look north not for the enemy but for the opportunities and allure Indonesia can offer.
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